My approach to budgeting is to lose track of everything, blow all of my money without realizing it, and then have to use credit to bail myself out of financial trouble.
Fortunately for my incompetent, dumb-ass self, my wife was an accountant before she was a software super hero and she handles our budgeting. Thanks to her immense brain we are doing okay, but there is never enough for everything that needs to be done at any given moment. I mean after yesterday’s court ruling in his fraud case even a certain orange pile of fascist goo is going to open a go fund me campaign to raise about 350 million dollars. Things are tough all over.
That is supposed to be a Jedi Knight working on his budget. I’ll buy that.
I don’t know how this works in other countries, but in the United States of America the word patriotic has two definitions. At least it used to. Now it seems to have developed a third.
I once heard a description of how Americans love their country from former US Senator and former Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken. I don’t remember the exact wording he used, but it came down to conservatives love their country the way a small child loves their parent. The country is always right and knows everything there is to know. A liberal loves their country the way an adult loves another adult. They see their flaws and accept them but also want to help them grow and learn and be better.
I fall into the liberal category. My country has always been a friggin’ mess. We have always made mistakes, many of them catastrophic. Despite that, I still love my country because I can see how good we can be. I see the positives along with the negatives. So am I patriotic? Not in the flag waving, We’re number one chanting way that conservatives are, but in a let’s fix our problems and be better than we are way. Yes, yes I am.
So what is our new, third definition of patriot in the USA? It comes from the maga cult, of course. It’s not a love or a respect for our country, it’s more like worship of an authority figure or a cult leader. The cult leader is above the law and free from repercussions for his actions. About half of the voting population sees their fuhrer figure as all knowing and all powerful and will agree with everything he says, no matter how idiotic or how un-american. Or how clearly nazi. Or how flat out evil. Half of our country is pro-fascist and it signals the end of everything we stand for. It’s just a matter of time at this point. It’s already over. Hitler didn’t need to win the second world war. He just had to be patient.
I confess. I am a dirty, rotten, law breaking, criminal. You heard it here first.
I love to drive, and sometimes I love to drive fast. Not too fast, but fast enough. Sometimes I choose to view the posted speed limit as more of a suggestion than an actual law. Do you know what I mean? See? I told you I was a law breaker.
Unfortunately for my confession, today’s daily writing prompt makes a point of using the word “unintentionally” which means my example does not apply. I need to come up with something else. Unfortunately for my criminal record I have an answer.
There I was, at the grocery store. One of the 10,000 or so Market Basket locations within a five mile radius of my home. I was in the check out aisle. I put my cart onto the belt like a good customer, waited as everything was rung up and bagged, paid my bill, and left the store.
When I got to my car I noticed something. There was a 12-pack of seltzer under the cart. I had forgotten about it and failed to send it through the register. I was in a hurry at that point and just put the box into the car and drove home. Thus making me a dirty, rotten, shoplifter. Once again, a criminal. Just despicable.
May you all forgive my unintentional law breaking. I am sorry, gentle readers.
Hey AI thing, generate an image of a sith lord driving too fast.
I had initially asked the AI formerly known as Google Bard to generate an image of a sith lord shoplifting. Here was the response:
While I am able to generate images, I cannot create content that depicts potentially risky or harmful behaviors, such as shoplifting. I understand that you may be interested in exploring this concept, but I am not able to fulfill your request.
Instead, I can offer to generate an image of a Sith Lord engaged in a different activity, or perhaps focusing on the character themself rather than their actions. Would you be interested in exploring either of those options?
It’s been a weird morning. I feel like I am massively off of my regular schedule, but I am getting caught up now. I’ll probably write more about it later, because I am a chronic over-sharer, as you may have noticed.
Anyway, if there was a biography about me, what would the title be? I foresee such a thing having one of two possible titles. The first would be something like, “Inside the Red Head’s Head.” Another possible name could be, “robertjames1971.blog.”
Wait a second! Something with titles like that already exists! Who would have thunk it? There is something similar to an autobiography already and you are literally reading it right now! I mean… this is more of a journal than an autobiography. Maybe if you squint a little you could call it a memoir. Probably not. Whatever, it’s a slice of my life at this point in time and I think that counts. Even if it is a carefully curated slice of life containing only the crap that I am willing to share with the greater universe. That still counts… I think… maybe… maybe not, but it’s good enough to answer this question today, don’t you think?
Google AI, generate an image of a Jedi Knight writing his or her autobiography.
His pen looks like a lightsaber! HA!
So what do you all think… is it time to cut the crap with the AI generated images of Jedi Knights doing something loosely related to the current daily writing prompt? I might be ready to stop, but I also might be ready to not stop. I am undecided.
I’m 52 years old. I’ll be 53 in May and suddenly that seems immensely older than 52. Weird, this aging thing, isn’t it?
When my mother was 52 my father was 50 and I was about 22. That was 1992. At that time I think my sister was still teaching 1st grade in Long Beach, CA and my brother was still in high school. I had dropped out of college (music school) and was either working at UPS loading tractor trailor trucks, or I was starting to attend Northeast Broadcasting School in their eight month audio recording certificate program.
I’m not sure of the timeline for my parents. My father was running an accounting department. I think he was still at the scrap metal company in Tewksbury. That wasn’t the happiest time in his professional life, but it was better than the last days with the restaurant company. My mother… I think my mother was working as a bookkeeper at the electronics place in Chelmsford. My father would eventually work there as well. He ran the accounting department and my mother worked for him. My brother interned there as well, and when I went back to school for real a few years later I worked there as an overnight cleaning guy. Things seemed good for my parents in those days.
Apart from that, I have to expect that my parents spent a lot of time worrying about what a fuck up I was turning into after first deciding to go to music school, then dropping out, then going to a useless tech school to study a useless field, and then turning into a warehouse flunky for a few years. It was 1997 when I went back to school for real. I hope that eased their worries.
1992 was a long way away from my mother’s brain tumor and the dementia it lead to, and my father’s heart attack and all the trouble that lead to. 1992 was a pretty happy year for me, personally, even if I was turning into a professional fuck up. I wouldn’t change a thing as it all lead me to where I am today. If I had to change anything though, that brain tumor and the heart attack would be high on the list. Hell… they would pretty much be the list.
Hey AI Thing, generate an image of a Jedi Knight visiting his parents.
There are many laws I’d like to change. There are many that exist that I would just like to see enforced. What was that amendment to the Constitution of the United States that made insurrectionist ineligible to run for President again? It would be nice to see a law like that enforced, wouldn’t it? As for changes, maybe something about making the wealthiest class of people in the US pay their share of taxes. Something like that could be fun, I think.
The one law I would change though is not actually a law yet, it’s a Supreme Court ruling about the constitutionality of various laws that passes responsibility to the states. I would like to change that situation so that there is a Federal law in place, possibly even a Constitutional Amendment. The law would state that individual women are responsible for their own health care decisions and the government can fuck right off. If a woman wants to have an abortion she can. If a women does not want to have an abortion she does not have to have one. Simple. The decision for any personal healthcare question belongs to the individual.
Like I said, simple.
Hey AI thing, generate an image of a Jedi Knight making decisions about her healthcare.
There is the real dream home, which exists on an emotional level, and the fantasy dream home which exists on a fairy tale level. I’ll give you both.
The real, emotional dream home is any home I share with my wife. Ideally I would share it with my step kids too, but they are adults now and I have to accept that. They will always have a place in wherever I happen to call home, but they don’t live with us anymore. To sum up, my current home is my dream home because I live here with Jen, my bride.
The fairy tale home is less interesting. Big house, near water, preferably the ocean but a lake or a river would do just as well. It would have a big kitchen, a big living room that we could stock up with cool home theater stuff. It would have a music room and lots of bedrooms and lots of rooms for work-from-home office spaces. It would have a big yard and a landscaper so I don’t have to mow the lawn myself. It would also have lots of nice views of the water. What else… lots of storage, I guess. Fun stuff like that.
When it comes to living arrangements, I don’t need a lot. I just need my family and a few places to spend time with them. I’m easy that way.
Hey Google AI thing, generate an image of a Jedi Knight relaxing in his dream home.
My response to receiving amazingly fantastic news would be three-fold.
First, I would share this hypothetical great, amazingly fantastic news with my wife, the love of my life, Jen.
Second, Jen and I together would share this hypothetical great, amazingly fantastic news with my step kids, Bellana and Harry.
Third, I would share this hypothetical great, amazingly fantastic news with the universe via a blog post on this very site.
Yes, that last one is pretty lame and nerdy, but I’m being honest with my kind, honorable, much appreciated readers. I’d let you all know, but you’d be third on the list.
Hey Google’s AI thing, whatever you’re calling yourself today, generate an image of a Jedi Knight receiving some amazingly fantastic news.
I don’t think this is a terribly interesting question, but I do think it’s a good writing prompt. Why? Because I would never ask myself this question. Does that make sense? Okay, that is the end of my philosophical discussion on writing prompts. Now let us answer the dumb sucker.
When I was a kid I used to play with Star Wars toys, virtually around the clock. I was probably 10 or 11 years old when I outgrew that activity.
I used to play baseball as much as humanly possible. If I wasn’t playing Little League I was playing wiffle ball with the other kids in the neighborhood. If I wasn’t playing wiffle ball I was just hanging out in the back yard hitting the wiffle ball out of my hand and then chasing it down. Sometimes I even used one of those pitch back things that let you play catch with yourself by throwing a ball off of it and then instead of catching it, I would hit it. I spent a lot of time tracking down wiffle balls or tennis balls in the back yard. I was done with all of that when I aged out of the town Little League when I was 15 years old.
On my 15th birthday my Uncle Johnny gave me a guitar. I have yet to outgrow that one.
Those are the first two kid-level activities that I can think of that were incredibly important to the little guy version of me that, as I grew up, stopped being important.
Hey Google Bard (it’s not Bard anymore, apparently it is Gemini now… okay, whatever) generate an image of a Jedi Knight playing baseball…
There are two answers to this question for me. Favorite candy before weight loss surgery and favorite candy after weight loss surgery. When I had my insides rewired by Gastric Bypass I lost the ability to digest sugar. If I eat more than the tiniest amount my guts will reject it and I will get seriously sick for hours. Basically I will expel everything out of both ends at the same time… so just imagine that and accept that I will never eat sugar again.
So what was my favorite candy before having my guts carved up back on May 4, 2022? That’s a tough one. There are so many options. I think Snickers bars might be the traditional answer as they were often my go-to candy. M&M’s could be the answer as well. I ate a lot of plain, milk chocolate M&M’s over the decades. One other possible answer would be more of a dark horse in the race. I really liked Reeces Fast Break bars. They were fantastic.
All of those choices could have been my favorite candy, but there was one other that probably wins out over everything. I didn’t have them often because they were only available during the xmas season. Cadbury Mini Eggs. Imagine M&M’s on steroids. Bigger, better candy shells, way better chocolate. They were like a delicacy. I had a couple of friends who felt the same way and we all used to stock up on them every holiday season. We horded them and were not ashamed to admit it. They were candy perfection to me.
Then we get to May 4, 2022 and my gastric bypass surgery. No more sugar for me. No more candy for me. Or was there? There are a few sugar free candies out there. I find myself drawn mostly to sugar free cookies and pudding cups, but I have been stock piling a couple of candies. Reeces makes a sugar free bite sized peanut butter cup and they are wonderful. Are they as good as the real thing? Probably not. Are they good enough for me in the new world? Yes, yes they are. I think they get my vote for my current favorite candy. A very close second is bite sized sugar free Hershey bars. They are excellent too. There is also a caramel filled sugar free Hershey bites that are excellent but my digestive system sometimes expresses displeasure the day after I eat sugar free caramel. It’s not bad and I am not going to boycott caramel, I just try to make sure I only eat it when I am going to be home the next day. I don’t think things will get that unpleasant, but I’ll error on the side of caution, you know?
Hey Google Bard, generate a photo of a Jedi Knight eating candy.
Inside the Red Head's Head 